Amazon’s latest Kindle deletion: erotic, incest-themed fiction

Amazon has reportedly begun removing content that touches on various forms of …

Amazon may be in the process of stirring up some more trouble for itself thanks to reports that the company is deleting certain kinds of erotica from both the online store and users' devices. The erotica in question is controversial: it talks about certain acts of incest. Judging from Amazon's most recent bouts with book "censorship," users who have already paid for the deleted content are likely to get fired up.

Self-published author Selena Kitt was first notified that the print version of one of her fiction books violated Amazon's content guidelines last week, followed by the unceremonious removal of two more offerings from the Kindle store. After noticing that the three books that Amazon singled out were all "erotic incest fantasy fiction," she found at least three other authors whose incest-themed erotica had been removed from Amazon, followed by a Kindle support thread full of even more names.

"I want to be clear that while the subject of incest may not appeal to some, there is no underage contact in any of my work, and I make that either explicitly clear in all my stories or I state it up front in the book's disclaimer," Kitt wrote in a blog post. "I don't condone or support actual incest, just as someone who writes mysteries about serial killers wouldn't condone killing."

On top of the book removal from Amazon's store, Kitt's readers reportedly found that her books had disappeared from their Kindles as well. "When one reader called to get a refund for the book she no longer had access to, she was chastised by the Amazon customer service representative about the 'severity' of the book she’d chosen to purchase," Kitt wrote.

If true, then Amazon has some explaining to do. When the company "went Big Brother" and deleted unauthorized copies of 1984 from readers' Kindles, the company was slapped with a lawsuit for removing content that people not only paid for, but also made notes and highlights in. Amazon eventually settled the lawsuit late last year, and in the settlement, Amazon's attorneys agreed to legally binding terms that described its content deletion policy. When it came to books, Amazon said that deletions would only occur under a limited number of circumstances: failed credit card transactions, judicial orders, malware, or the permission of the user.

Fictional incest activities between two fictional adults doesn't appear to fall into any of those categories, but that may be neither here nor there, since Amazon's author guidelines restrict unspecified kinds of "offensive" content. This came to a head last month, when a furor rose among Internet users over Amazon's sale of The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure. Amazon eventually caved to public pressure and removed the book, despite the company's insistence that it tries to resist censorship whenever possible.

"Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable," the company said in a statement at the time. "Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions."

Sex educator and author Violet Blue pointed out in an e-mail to Ars that Amazon's decisions here only continue to highlight the downsides to e-book DRM compared to physical books. "[Physical books] can't be taken back by the seller once you buy them, because the seller does not approve of the content," Blue said.

"I think what bothers me the most [with this situation] is the privacy issue for readers—this is actually HUGE. Especially with the egregious irresponsibility in their customer service representative department. Amazon is monitoring, watching and deciding for you what is sexually appropriate for you—their customers," she added.

Kitt has one more bone to pick with Amazon over its latest decision: Amazon's own TV ad shows a woman reading a Kindle book that details a sexual relationship between a 19-year-old and his stepmother, "which, in some states, is legally incest." Whether Amazon thinks the book in the ad is equally inappropriate will remain unclear for now, though, as Amazon did not respond to our requests for comment on this story.

Update: An Amazon spokesperson has responded to our query by saying that the books violated Amazon's content guidelines. As for the books being deleted from users' Kindles: "Due to a technical issue, for a short window of time three books were temporarily unavailable for re-download by customers who had previously purchased them. When this was brought to our attention, we fixed the problem and those books were once again made available for re-download. We apologize for the inconvenience."

Amazon has still not explained why certain books have been targeted. I am keeping an eye on the Kindle support thread as mentioned in the above post (I started the thread, lol), and am interested to see if Amazon gives a response.

My reply on the thread (to Amazon's update re: the technical glitch):

@ Amazon Kindle Customer Service: Thank you for the reply. I have one question: what are the titles of these three books?

Did these books experience a technical glitch too? If so, when will these books be made available again for re-download? They (and many other self-published erotica books) are not available at the Kindle store at the time of this posting.

Rockdaman, Dude, you don't have to be on this openly available website.you basically are arguing semantics, and pointing out an easy misunderstanding repeatedly.Why don't you head out of the house/office/basement lair of world domination, grab a beer (or a vodka tonic, or a nice chilean red), relax, and interact with some people in the flesh instead of proving yourself to be an insufferable internet toughguy know-it-all who has to have the last word, with an axe to grind against someone who, by and large, writes decent EDITORIAL articles and has a decent background knowledge of technology, over a minor technicality.I mean seriously man, you really HAVE to be "right" that bad? You are the very definition of Troll, or you work for Amazon PR.Check out icanhascheezburger.com and laugh a little or something.-Mike

What is there to clear up. I don't like the fact that Amazon feels the need to exert some kind of editorial control of the sexual content of the fiction they sell. I don't find incest appealing and wouldn't be interested in reading stories about it. But if they are willing to censor incest, where do they draw the line? Are they going to censor stories featuring S/M, rape, bondage, gay sex, lesbian sex, inter racial sex, violence, drug use, etc. I may not find your particular fantasy appealing but I am definitely opposed to censorship of it. I saw the update to the story, but the bottom line is Amazon has decided they don't want to sell some books because of material they find offensive. That's censorship and I don't want to support it. Hell, I've been a huge Amazon customer over the years, as I love books, but I not only don't want to buy a kindle now, I really don't want to buy physical books from them anymore. I don't want to support business's that support censorship.

Did these books experience a technical glitch too? If so, when will these books be made available again for re-download? They (and many other self-published erotica books) are not available at the Kindle store at the time of this posting.

Amazon I don't think have explained why they're targeting the books they did, but the gist of the technical debate is that they didn't intend for existing owners to lose access (which they didn't if they had the book downloaded already), only for the items to be unavailable for new purchases. I'm sure their codemonkeys are on the case.

I hate censorship in general, too, and criticize Amazon for stuff like the recent wikileaks AWS ban. I can only guess that it's due to similar political pressure from some special interest group.

OTOH, Amazon as a store sells Nazi paraphernalia from third parties, which I thought was a bizarre thing to allow. Maybe nobody complained about it.

Are you one of the authors involved? Is it your contention that the original books that were at the center of the contreversy are no longer available for sale or that they are no longer available for re-download? Or are these a different set of books?

Even for this guide of the pedophile, censorship is not the solution. Why would big companies choose for us what is good or bad for us ? And retrospectively ?I can see two solutions:- Amazon is led by some stupid christian extremists- Amazon is afraid like hell of lawsuitHypocrisy will make us all stupid. This is what happens when you entrust culture to private companies…

mtb<i>I buy 95% of my books from local bookstores or direct from publishers I like. I do buy the occasional book off Amazon, but almost always out of print items from 3rd party resellers, not from Amazon directly. </i>

The problem is that when you buy out of print books from resellers, the author receives no money. Speaking as both a reader and an author, I love indie bookstores, but they didn't carry my first two books, because they just didn't have the inventory space. My third book, Conmergence is available on Amazon alongside the bestsellers. Online retail has equalized distribution, so I for one, am not a fan of going back to the way it was before.

That said, it really creeps me out to think someone could be snatching books back a year after I buy them based on the whims of whatever the mob decides is the latest trend in witch-hunting. At least there are a few competitors like B&N and Smashwords, though there's nothing to stop the witch-hunt parties from going after them too. Indeed, I heard that B&N had already dropped some of the same books as Amazon, and that's not good news.

if Amazon is going to act as a moderator of what is and is not allowed in their store they ought to be held legally liable for it--having taken it upon themselves to take this responsibility, they need to experience all the consequences for it.

Except they are a retailer, not an ISP or search engine. The laws for ISPs have nothing to do with the laws for retailers and and any store has the right to decide what and what not to sell (as long as what they sell is legal). I disagree with Amazon's decision to pull the books, but it is their right. As far as deleting them from people's kindles goes though, that is totally unacceptable and infuriates me to no end!

writes decent EDITORIAL articles and has a decent background knowledge of technology, over a minor technicality.

It wasn't a minor technically as much as an erroneous representation of facts. I personally expect people to conduct themselves to high standards, and it's not really too much to ask for something more substantive than the lame update that was posted. As oaklandnative above shows, this misrepresentation is still being propagated by the article.

Quote:

I don't want to support business's that support censorship.

You can buy your shit whereever you want, but given that pretty much all businesses bend to political and populist pressure to some degree, it's an extreme disservice to single out a company that probably provides more access to material than most.

edit: goddamn this thread moves fast. a minute to add a sentence and it's already well past.

Are you one of the authors involved? Is it your contention that the original books that were at the center of the contreversy are no longer available for sale or that they are no longer available for re-download? Or are these a different set of books?

The original books that started this whole thing (mainly my book, three of Selena Kitt's, and some by Esmeralda Greene), are currently not available for sale on the Amazon store. We have (politely, and) repeatedly sent queries to the Amazon Customer Service team, but all we get are form replies on how "they have the right to decide what is appropriate/inappropriate content."

Judging from the official Amazon reply (one, so far), we are unable to decipher what they mean, because we have no idea which "three books" the Amazon representative is referring to.

As far as deleting them from people's kindles goes though, that is totally unacceptable and infuriates me to no end!

The problem is that despite what this article says, no actual files were deleted from anyone's kindle.

What's worse is that the whole "unavailable for re-download" issue was just a glitch, and the whole article was essentially predicated on using that sentiment to advance the broader claim that digital books are problematic compared to physical books for this very reason.

What would be illuminating now is an article that reflects on our own trust issues, even as technologists, with the stuff of our livelihoods.

We know that Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters in addition to Abel, Cain, and Seth (Gen. 5:4), and if there was only one original family, then the first marriages had to be between brothers and sisters. Such marriages in the beginning were not harmful. Incest is dangerous because inherited mutant genes that produce deformed, sickly, or moronic children are more likely to find expression in children if those genes are carried by both parents...

Interesting to know people approve of incest.

Quasi Theoretical view: Since Eve was made from Adam's rib. I don't think incest would cover their marriage. It's like marrying your clone. Cane and Abel must be pretty close replicas of Adam having purely his genes. there would have to be mutations to diversify.

Biological view:A bunch of monkeys committed incest and created the Human race. That could explain a lot.

The idea of Amazon removing already-purchased ebooks from anyone's library (whether on the Kindle itself or in the server-side archive, or both) is repugnant; and I thought it had been cleared up after the George Orwell incident.

(For those who have forgotten: Amazon was reselling Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm in ebook editions for some third party which did not have authorization to redistribute the works. When the Orwell estate got wind of this, they demanded Amazon stop selling them immediately. Amazon did, and also deleted them from people's Kindles and server-side archives. This (rightly!) blew up in their faces. Amazon refunded $30 for each book so deleted. Jeff Bezos personally promised that such unilateral deletions would not happen again. Ars story here, for those who didn't notice it in TFA.)

I am glad that Amazon's assurances after that incident have so far been upheld in spirit. I have (and love!) the original Kindle If this had happened to me, I would have been pretty angry. I can forgive them a mistake which lasted a few hours or days. And yes, as an IT guy myself, I *can* see how it could have happened without any duplicitous intent on Amazon's part.

But with the clarifications to this story, I remain a happy Kindle user. This story turns out to have been much ado over nearly nothing.

Clusterfuck. If Amazon doesn't want to sell books because of content, that's their business (it's troubling, but fully within their rights).. But to delete legally purchased content from their customers' devices??! That's just.. Clusterfuck.

What is there to clear up. I don't like the fact that Amazon feels the need to exert some kind of editorial control of the sexual content of the fiction they sell. I don't find incest appealing and wouldn't be interested in reading stories about it. But if they are willing to censor incest, where do they draw the line? Are they going to censor stories featuring S/M, rape, bondage, gay sex, lesbian sex, inter racial sex, violence, drug use, etc. I may not find your particular fantasy appealing but I am definitely opposed to censorship of it. I saw the update to the story, but the bottom line is Amazon has decided they don't want to sell some books because of material they find offensive. That's censorship and I don't want to support it. Hell, I've been a huge Amazon customer over the years, as I love books, but I not only don't want to buy a kindle now, I really don't want to buy physical books from them anymore. I don't want to support business's that support censorship.

While I think RockDaMan is being a little (a lot?) in-your-face about this, I do agree that an update/correction needs to be placed for the article. The article is plainly factually incorrect. Amazon's actions as described in the article are just not true. And an update that doesn't clearly state that the books weren't deleted from the Kindles isn't good enough. It still states in the article (and is not refuted in the update): "Kitt's readers reportedly found that her books had disappeared from their Kindles as well"

The whole censorship versus a businesses right to sell what they choose (or to later change their minds) is a completely different discussion, as is the fickleness and lack of consistency in applying policies. If that's what you consider censorship, you're going to have a really hard time patronizing any store of any kind. Already, in the mobile market Apple, MS, and Android all have policies regarding what is appropriate and what isn't for their marketplaces. I've yet to see a book on hard core bondage at my b&m Barnes and Noble. Nor have I seen sex toys at my neighborhood Target. Like it or not, all stores pick and choose what they sell and what they don't.

But with the clarifications to this story, I remain a happy Kindle user. This story turns out to have been much ado over nearly nothing.

What's funny is that the next comment is a perfect example:

d_jedi wrote:

Clusterfuck. If Amazon doesn't want to sell books because of content, that's their business (it's troubling, but fully within their rights).. But to delete legally purchased content from their customers' devices??! That's just.. Clusterfuck.

So, let me get this straight. We have the author, clearly not a disinterested party, through hearsay recounting an unverified experience of one her customers where she was unable to re-download the book from her "archive" and got bad customer service. That turns into a story about Amazon intentionally deleting content from people's Kindles (without compensation!), and potentially subverting the agreed terms of the settlement?

The worst thing about all of this are all the commenters who simply got played by Ars' sensationalism. Don't you feel like asses now?

Well... um... yeah, actually I kinda do. Not an ass I guess since I posted based on the info at hand, but it would have been nice to have an Ars update/correction before I posted. Get on it Ars! EDIT: I suggest a title change and posting a correction at the top rather than an update at the bottom.

The original books that started this whole thing (mainly my book, three of Selena Kitt's, and some by Esmeralda Greene), are currently not available for sale on the Amazon store.

That's Amazons choice. You are free to sell them elsewhere and your audience will hopefully follow.

Do your readers who previously purchased the material from Amazon have access to it again? Did they lose it to begin with?

Hi RockDaMan,

Yes, for that reason, I personally will be working on a (simple) new website next year, in case other distributors delete my "deviant" material (my other material is still okay / available on Amazon, at the moment).

That being said, I think it would still be "good business practice" (or plain politeness, if nothing else), for Amazon to have clearer guidelines so that seemingly random things like deletion of specific products won't occur again [deletion of self-published incest/erotica books, in this case -- but latest update, some of Olympia Press's books have been pulled from both Amazon and B&N (they were the original press that published Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita") -- I either read the comment on a Facebook page, from someone linked to OP, or from one of Selena Kitt's pages -- can't remember!].

The authors whose books were pulled received no warning or explanation as to why the items were removed.

Part of Amazon's reply (to my original queries via email) included:

"...your account may be suspended if you repeatedly violate our guidelines."

To which I responded:

"(Thank you for the reply blahx3)...If there are no clearly-stated guidelines as to what is appropriate/inappropriate material with regards to erotic content, how would I know whether future material of mine will be deemed 'offensive'?"

Still no reply...

P.S. Some readers who did not download the purchase onto their Kindle device had the item removed from their Kindle archives. I have not been updated yet as to whether the previously purchased products are now fully accessible (even if the product itself is no longer on Amazon's website -- will check that Amazon thread later to see if someone mentions something.

Rock, you have a point, but it's also possible you're having it badly. Ars is a team of people.The byline belongs to the original author, but as we saw in a recent Peter Bright story, there's also an editorial process which change the original author's intent somewhat. Your complaints should be addressed to Ars in general, not any single person.

Sure, there probably needs to be some process tightening to avoid gaffes like this in the future. But making it personal probably won't speed that up meaningfully.

if Amazon is going to act as a moderator of what is and is not allowed in their store they ought to be held legally liable for it--having taken it upon themselves to take this responsibility, they need to experience all the consequences for it.

Except they are a retailer, not an ISP or search engine. The laws for ISPs have nothing to do with the laws for retailers and and any store has the right to decide what and what not to sell (as long as what they sell is legal). I disagree with Amazon's decision to pull the books, but it is their right. As far as deleting them from people's kindles goes though, that is totally unacceptable and infuriates me to no end!

Hence why I chose "ought" rather than "are"--I was drawing a comparison between the situation of Amazon and the situation of the ISPs, given the nature of their similar relationship to the end user, e.g. as the middleman through which content is reached.

I do realize that that is not the -current- state of affairs, but I think it's a -useful- state that would result in quite a lot of good.

The authors whose books were pulled received no warning or explanation as to why the items were removed.

Part of Amazon's reply (to my original queries via email) included:

"...your account may be suspended if you repeatedly violate our guidelines."

To which I responded:

"(Thank you for the reply blahx3)...If there are no clearly-stated guidelines as to what is appropriate/inappropriate material with regards to erotic content, how would I know whether future material of mine will be deemed 'offensive'?"

P.S. Some readers who did not download the purchase onto their Kindle device had the item removed from their Kindle archives. I have not been updated yet as to whether the previously purchased products are now fully accessible (even if the product itself is no longer on Amazon's website -- will check that Amazon thread later to see if someone mentions something.

As far as deleting them from people's kindles goes though, that is totally unacceptable and infuriates me to no end!

The problem is that despite what this article says, no actual files were deleted from anyone's kindle.

That's splitting a pretty narrow hair. Previously, Amazon invalidated a Kindle link to local storage. In this case, Amazon invalidated a Kindle link to cloud storage. While I can appreciate the differences between the two from a general outrage standpoint, from a Kindle user's perspective they might as well be the same thing.

Anyway, good on Amazon for fixing the problem. Bad on Amazon for feeling they need to censor any book, but that's their prerogative - just as it's my prerogative to spend my money at a bookstore that doesn't try to mandate what is and is not appropriate.

The authors whose books were pulled received no warning or explanation as to why the items were removed.

Part of Amazon's reply (to my original queries via email) included:

"...your account may be suspended if you repeatedly violate our guidelines."

To which I responded:

"(Thank you for the reply blahx3)...If there are no clearly-stated guidelines as to what is appropriate/inappropriate material with regards to erotic content, how would I know whether future material of mine will be deemed 'offensive'?"

Still no reply...

This is troubling.

Hi oaklandnative,

I know! Some of the books in question have been removed from B&N too (corporate conspiracy!).

Mine is still on B&N. For now.

Better go work on my "small little new website" asap. Will have a "banned!" category somewhere.

Rock, you have a point, but it's also possible you're having it badly. Ars is a team of people.The byline belongs to the original author, but as we saw in a recent Peter Bright story, there's also an editorial process which change the original author's intent somewhat. Your complaints should be addressed to Ars in general, not any single person.

Sure, there probably needs to be some process tightening to avoid gaffes like this in the future. But making it personal probably won't speed that up meaningfully.

I'll accept your point. But both Clint and Jacqui rushed in when I made the mistake of calling her an iBooks fan. Clint even started name-calling.

But they are very scarce in-thread now, when they could be saying (at minimum) "There is an important update to this story coming -- wait for it."

P.S. Some readers who did not download the purchase onto their Kindle device had the item removed from their Kindle archives. I have not been updated yet as to whether the previously purchased products are now fully accessible (even if the product itself is no longer on Amazon's website -- will check that Amazon thread later to see if someone mentions something.

Well this incident has given you a lot of publicity, but the only issue at hand is whether users have lost and had their access restored.

I think my Project Runway Season 8 rant brought me more publicity (partly because a fashion insider forwarded it to their friends; I don't know who).

The issue you mentioned is certainly not "the only issue at hand." Amazon (and possibly B&N, at the latest update) is actively deleting select material. This is censorship. Censorship being defined as:

"A person authorized to examine books, films, or other material and to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable." -- http://www.thefreedictionary.com/censor